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“I fell asleep. I don’t know what time it was or how long I was out. A commotion outside the door woke me up. Shark came barreling in the room and went straight for me, ranting and raving about someone showing up at the house.”
The special agent watched her over the top of his square-shaped readers. He’d done that through most of the debrief which, as it turned out, was just a fancy word for interrogation. This was her first since working behind a computer in cybercrimes didn’t warrant too many debriefings. “Did he say who it was that had shown up?”
Maddox’s stare seemed to penetrate through her eyes and into her brain. Like he was rooting around in there and trying to determine if her account of the events was accurate and truthful.
“No. He just kept screaming, ‘They’re fucking here.’ He didn’t even glance at Maverick. Just came straight toward me, grabbed my head, and slammed it against the table.”
Her reporting of the events was neither true nor accurate.
If assaulting a man and allowing him to be executed wasn’t bad enough, now she’d flat-out lied to her superiors at the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
“And you were rendered unconscious?”
With a nod, she said, “Immediately.” At least that much was true.
Could the metal seat be any harder on her ass? She fidgeted, trying to shift the pressure to the side of her butt instead of directly over the sore bones. As she moved, her splint clunked against the table, drawing both her and Special Agent Maddox’s attention.
“How are you feeling?” he asked for the first time since they began this debrief—six hours ago. Mid-forties, divorced, with a receding hairline, growing gut, and slight underbite, he had the reputation of living at the office.
“I’m sore. My wrist hurts, my ankles hurt, my ass hurts, and my next dose of pain medication was due an hour ago. We’ve been at this for hours without so much as a bathroom break. If my pants were off, I’d think I was still back in Shark’s basement.”
He didn’t so much as blink at her snippy tone. “We’re almost finished. Just a few more questions.”
She rolled her unencumbered hand around. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Tell me about when you woke up.”
Since she’d already laid it out for him twice, ordering him to tell her about it was on the tip of her tongue. But that wouldn’t end this debacle any faster. “I woke up when I heard voices. Two men were standing over me.”
“Hell’s Handlers?”
“I don’t know. They never said.”
Lie.
Maddox sighed, clearly losing patience with her unhelpful answers. “Were they wearing leather cuts?”
“They were not.”
Truth.
“What did they say to you?”
“Asked my name. Asked if I thought I could get up once the cuffs were removed. I said yes, but when I sat up, I passed out again. Next time I woke up, I was in the hospital.”
Partial truth.
“And you never saw the men again? Didn’t get any names?”
“No.”
Lie.
“How did you end up at the Handlers’ clubhouse?” He shut his notebook, thank God, and nudged the glasses up his nose.
“Maverick came into my hospital room to check on me. He offered a room for me to stay. It would have seemed off if I refused since I had no one or nothing in Tennessee, so I said yes.”
Truth. Sorta.
Resting his forearms on the table, he asked, “And what happened when you arrived at the clubhouse?”
“I was shown to a room, and I stayed there for a day. Someone brought me some food, and that was that until the Agent showed up to drive me back.”
Lie.
Maverick would be in jail in a hot minute if she admitted the truth. So would Zach, Copper, and Jig. The men who saved her and sought vengeance for three murdered teens.
Her inner voice had been screaming at her since she first laid a hand on King. This debrief only made it worse. Yet she kept on ignoring it.
“And you saw nothing, heard nothing while you were in the clubhouse that could be of use to our investigation?”
“No. Nothing.”
Lie.
“Come on, Agent Little. Work with us a bit here. I know this was traumatic for you, but another agent is dead. Shark’s house was torched, Maverick was gone when you woke up, and we have nothing. Less than nothing. Not a single shred of evidence to link the Hell’s Handlers to what happened in the woods. Those men who rescued you didn’t wander up to Shark’s doorstep by accident, but they might as well have since we have squat. Agent Rey’s family wants answers, and so do we.”
Stephanie straightened in her chair, ignoring the way her sore ass ground into the hard surface. “Answers? You want answers? I’ve given you fucking answers. I gave Baccarella answers when I was in the hospital. Rey turned. He was a bad agent. As bad as they come. He was responsible for the deaths of three teenage girls. He almost got me raped and killed.”
